Stiker shock

So I know some of my blogs all seem to revolve around the fact that pricing has gone up a lot but yesterday I was astounded that so many 1/8 figurines that have come up or that are on pre-order now surpass the ¼ scale.

Back in 2012 I had set myself out a few rules for ordering figurines. One of which was no ¼ scales as they were at the time what I considered to be very expensive even with the soaring Canadian dollar at the time. The day before yesterday I was on FB and I saw a picture of Ami Ami and I noticed a post about Infernal Temptress “AIRI” in a maid uniform.

I collect maids; they are a staple in my collection so I told myself to go and check the stores I deal with to see what she would cost. Nothing yet on sites two days ago then yesterday on Ami Ami I got sticker shocked. Where I was expecting 12000 to maybe 14000 Yen for this little cutie I was blown away with a pre-order price of 19224 Yen. This is for a 1/8th figurine O M G ! this is now worth more than some of the re-release bunnies that are coming out 18920 yen.

Two more shining examples of the 1/8th pricing indicator for the future of this hobby are Fate/grand Order- Lancer/Altria Pendragon and Onegai Teacher Mizuho Kazami.

Let’s start with what is to be certain a Fate fan extravaganza. First off WOW! now this is one highly detailed figurine at least it appears to be so in the pictures.

If it turns out as good as the pics I can see a tone of people buying this. Even I who is not a fate fan at all would love to own this beauty. But as the intent of the blog is about just how pricing has gone up well with a pre-order price of 20550 yen on AmiAmi I can only assume that some of the people that would like to get her will pushed out of the market as she is expensive. We all know this hobby is not for the faint of heart but even at that level I would have to consider if that figurine is something I wish to add to my collection. I am reminded of a Saber figurine that came out in 2012

Detail wise this is another great figurine and at the time you could get her for approx 12000 yen. So comparing these 2 figurines we can see the price shot op almost 8000 yen $80.00 for me in about 6 years.
That is a healthy increase for that scale.

Now here is one that I did not get especially at the price it was put up for in Pre-order markets. I have a few Onegai Teacher figurines and I like the character from the anime.

There have been several renderings of her over the years. Now with this latest one I don’t understand why the price was so high to start with At most the figurine in my books is worth the standard these days of between 12000-14000 yen we are seeing in the market. Even this is high but it is what the market is asking and people are paying for it. The pre order price for her was 19980 Yen.

By looking at the pose there is not anything super special with her. It’s not like the fate one that is so detailed and huge that I would say warrants the commanding price requested. Sometimes I think the industry throws a price on the wall and if it sticks then great if they get it; they made a huge profit. Since that time there are a few sites that I have seen that brought her price down a bit on sales as I think that she did not sell very well at close to 20000 Yen.

With the pricing of bunnies these days running between 17890 and 22000 Yen I just can’t believe that the 1/8th market has caught up to the ¼ scales and sometimes surpassed them. Longing for the price ranges from 2012 when I started to collect is futile. That won’t happen but I wonder if the industry is pricing itself out of reach for a good portion of figurine buyers.

By browsing the Ami Ami page since the beginning of the year I can see a lot of companies pricing their product between the 14000 - 17000 yen for 1/8 figurines. Seems that the 20 - 30 $ increase a year is on that steady path to seeing 1/8 figurines coming out from 2019 - 2020 at a $ 200.00 plus price point.

For this year I can also speculate that soon enough that companies like freeing and Binding with up their pricing on 1/4 scales to reflect what they think the market can bear and we as greedy consumers will pay what it takes to get that figurine that we oh so want.

Although somewhat speculative on some of the comments in this blog I would really like to know what you think the future of this industry holds. Maybe you think I am in left field. Lets have a chat. I look forward to you comments below

A very good read and interesting points! I actually put this down to the fluctuation of the market, basically when I first started figure collecting the yen was strong but not as much as it is now, case in point for me being in blighty, and ahem 'Brexit' (yeah I know I said it! lol) the prices are terrible sometimes, For example when I first started I made a currency conversion chart so I could get a round about idea on prices before I hit that buy button! Back in 2013 the JPY to pound was awesome I mean really awesome! 10,000 JPY was £58.50 now however 10,000 JPY is £68.40!!! (by current exchange rate) So as a UK collector it hurts like hell buying some of the more coveted figures I want but I don't think all figure companies have gone too crazy with pricing as you Tia may have read on my FB page on AmiAmi pre-order predicaments (sorry for the shameless plug there! XD) that a lot of the figure's I've looked into have had fair prices for the quality and size they are. I don't feel Good Smile have gone too mad as the Wedding Sonico price (for the standard I might add because yeah the gold set is just a NO! lol) 15,180 pre-order price and that to me is just a little over £100.00 for a 1/6 which I think is pretty awesome! I mean she is a big figure and highly detailed and I can't wait to have her in my collection! On the other side of things I actually paid a little over £100 for 1/4 Satellizer back in the day! Anyway Kotobukiya are quite fair too with the re-release YuYu Hakusho 1/8 figures, Yusuke is just a little over £35.00 for me which I think is great! That is a brilliant price for a Koto figure! So honestly I think it just depends on the company and the series in general, I will say though that figure prices have gone up and continue to do so, as Figma's used to sit around the 3,000-4,000 JPY mark but now they're going for over 5,000-6,000 JPY so yeah that's a lot for just a Figma. This hobby has got more expensive as the years of gone on and will probably carry on like that not just for us in the UK, I can see where you're coming from here though as some of these don't justify the extravagant price tag and some do, the Fate figure yes, it's big majestic and is a center piece, the Mizuho, NO that's just UC being cheeky! I agree with your point on how this hobby is difficult though, I work a lot and I am rewarded with my figures but for those who can't work or having difficulty financing the hobby then these prices will feel unreachable and thus it may even push them out of the hobby entirely, sadly we won't see a balance to the prices to make them easier to get either, as it's not just the main price that can be harsh but as we all know the aftermarket itself is also hell!

This is pretty much why I'm only doing Kotobukiya (Even then their recent Azur Lane fig is wtf in price) Pokemon figures now. Want stuff but then I see the price and I'm "Fuck that".
Only made the expensive exception for Ichimanda/Munetoku figure because I've wanted a NSFW fig for years, I pined for it for three weeks after being "Too expensive" and only caved because I got a huge tax rebate lmfao.

I honestly think the figure market is just getting too damn expensive to justify painted plastic being this much. The recent shining example is the 1/4 Nekopara figures. You want $300 each?> Ehm. Nah.

Helsing (5 meses atrás) #36525134I looked also at the maid price and was like wtf.
And cmon that Saber price is somehow justified , she is 50 cm tall and with a horse .
The only thing I dislike about her are those balloon tits.
When I looked at the pictures I was like fuck this will be 30-40 yen.

I cannot say that the price is not justified but a we had other figurines in the past that were huge and cost way less then 20500 Yen. Yes this is what the market will bear this year but what about the next and the next. And as someone who collects I cannot consider this really like 2 figurines as someone said in a post. If I want to buy a 1/8 horse Then I will buy a barbie horse for way less then what we are paying for this one.

Now don't get me wrong I was really mesmerized by the figurine and looked it over and I know that it will please a lot of people as stated in my original blog.

I want to thank everyone that commented. It was interesting to see how people perseved this blog and what emotions they brought out in people. I enjoyed reading about what you the blog reader had in mind when comparing some of the figurines that you found to be out there when it comes to pricing.

I am glad that people saw what I have been saying for a while in that the pricing is really gone up in the last few years. Having said that I am glad though that it has not reached the RAW level of pricing. I saw the Batman Samurai announced today on GSC news letter. A wopping 99000 Yen for this puppy.

and then there is this wild looking 9 tailed fox that I saw before ... Not sure what series its from but it was super detailed and I think it was from OnePiece. Anyways that one as well was a wopping 99000 Yen. That to me is Dolfie territory and I am not going there.

I think figure companies are testing how much they can charge for 1/8. In my first year or so of collecting, 1/8 scales like ITEM #485674, ITEM #514853, ITEM #455587, and ITEM #12 came out. Figures with more detail cost me between 11,000 to 14,000 yen, while basic figures or remakes were between 6,000 and 9,000 yen.

This year, 1/8 scales like ITEM #675943, ITEM #644645, ITEM #604222, and ITEM #330767 are coming out. While the basic Koto figure is the same price as the one from last year in the line and the remake is still within the 6,000 to 9,000 yen range, the other two figures that show the price range of 1/8 scales on I have on order are 12,000 to 16,000 yen approximately. This means the average 1/8 scale for me now cost 1,000 yen more this year than last year.

However, this range does not include 1/7 figures and fancier 1/8 figures that really seem to be pushing the prices up. Last year, ITEM #396841 came out and really pushed the boundary for a 1/8 price, costing only a $100 less than this 1/4 polyresin ITEM #335889 I bought in 2016. Of course, Sakura binned, but it shows that GSC is starting to test the waters to see how much they can charge for a 1/8 with a lot of details.

Another expensive 1/8 is ITEM #574524, which technically contains two figures and quite a bit of detail, but is still a bit overpriced for the quality, like most MH figures. I am still seeing it in stores despite supposedly being very limited and exclusive, probably because people lack confidence in MH at that price.

Among 1/7, prices have actually been almost the same for me, but there are some exceptions. I did not get it, but ITEM #464649 raised quite a few eyebrows when it was announced. It is beautiful, but I think several people waited for it to go on sale.

We may discuss all day if the price of a manufacturer is justified relative to quality or speculate factors, but I believe at the end of the day, we ourselves are the ones who will decide if the price/value of a figure is justified or not, not the manufacturer or company. If you think that quality, enjoyment factor, etc doesn't justify the given price, then don't buy it. Figures and related collections like art are subjective when it comes to value, and each one of us have different thresholds or ways in determining value of an object. The company / manufacturer will just provide a figure with a certain degree of quality at a certain price, and it's up to us if it's worth it or not.

Yes, some or many of us may agree that the quality of a certain figure sucks relative to its price, but we can't say it's also true for others (or other markets like JP) who may have a different way of evaluating value.

And I believe company / manufacturers are no fools. If they set the price too high that no one is buying and they're losing profit from it, then they'll adjust accordingly. It may be on improving quality, reducing price or whatever they deem necessary. The fact that this is still the trend (increasing prices), means that the company / manufacturer is still doing good with this model. As to why it's still working, then it might be that others see value on these figures in a different way that make the price justified thus they buy the figure. As for how long this trend will continue, we can only speculate as we don't have solid data from the different markets especially the main one in Japan.

I agree the Artoria figure is well priced, even cheaper than what I would have expected nowadays. A simple way to look at it as two 1/8 scale figures: The horse and Artoria which is equivalent to a 1/4 scale figure. The horse is larger than most 1/8 scale figures too, so that needs to be factored in. With the lance she dwarves 1/4 scale figures that don't have large accessories or bases. The figure is arguably more highly detailed too than most 1/4 scale figures, especially the Freeing bunnies which was used as an example here.

The average annual inflation rate in the US is a bit over 3% and figure prices are definitely inflating faster than the 3% average. I think the Saber Artoria and Lancer Artoria is a fair comparison so you are looking at almost a 60% price increase in 6 years while normal inflation should be closer to 20%. That's a large increase! Some scale figure prices seemed to have increase well over 100% more of the price they would be from 6 years ago too. Quality does seemed to have overall increased so at least there is that.

The Airi and Onegai Teacher figurines seem absurdly overpriced. I can't imagine they will sell well.

I don't think the market will continue this trend for too long. Eventually it is going to price out the majority of collectors and while they could get away with selling more expensive products (with less of a cost ratio) to fewer buyers, there will be a point where so few will bother collecting due to how expensive the hobby is that it will not be cost effective to do so. I expect a few more years of price increases till a $200 price tag is normal for a basic 1/8 scale before the market collapses. That's just personal speculation though, I'm not an economist.

I agree with you all the way for the figures that you have considered.

I foresee that, there will be a slow down in the rise of figure prices. I suspect fewer Japanese collectors are buying new figures and the companies are making most figures as Limited editions(made to order.)

You gotta think, how much increase in design and quality justifies the rise in price. Another factor you have to think about is, just how much enjoyment are you going to extract out of these 200$ scale figures. As the figure prices rise, I become more and more selective.

Once your collection crosses 100 scale figures, a figure is just going to sit on the shelf and you would probably pay its due attention once every few months.